BRENDEL PLAYS BEETHOVEN : HERBIG CONDUCTS BOWL ‘OPENING’

There were four concerts at the Hollywood Bowl last week.

One offered Great Hits of Tchaikovsky and Rachmaninoff. Another surveyed marvelous Mozart. The third turned out to be a six-hour grab-bag marathon, and, on the festive Fourth, Cahuenga Pass resounded as usual with pyrotechnical pops.

Thanks to the hyperbolic illogic dictated by tradition and fiscal brouhaha, however, none of the above counted.

None qualified as the opening of the Bowl season. In retrospect, these concerts must have been figments of our overstimulated, decadent imaginations.

The official opening didn’t take place until Tuesday night. This, we were assured, was a very different night.

What made it so different? The brochure labeled the concert “gala.”

Ah.

Ushers handed out free advertising-buttons. The top ticket rose to $42. While the Los Angeles Philharmonic played the inevitable National Anthem and before the inevitable wags could cry “play ball,” enormous, arching strings of balloons were released to the sky.

Ah.

A new slogan hypes our outdoor amphitheater as the place where “music meets the stars.”

Ah.

On this occasion at least, it was the place where balloons met the stars. No one could deny that.

In the distant good old days, the music director of an orchestra led his merry band in most of its summer outings. The resident boss certainly could be expected to make a ceremonial appearance at the gala opening.

Not here.

Andre Previn will conduct at the Bowl on three nights in mid-August. Otherwise, the 11-week season will be given over to 19 guests. Only two or three of them can be labeled distinguished.

If our regular maestro is unwilling or unable to take charge, perhaps it is time to appoint a separate music director for the Philharmonic in the summer. Such a move would enhance continuity, growth and unity of perspective.

It also might raise standards. It might make life easier for the orchestra. It might even make the limited rehearsals something more than get-acquainted sessions.

The gala podium on Tuesday belonged to Guenther Herbig, the Czechoslovakian music director of the Detroit Symphony. We have known him since 1984 as a solid, competent, well-routined and not particularly inspiring conductor.

He opened the ultra-conservative, all-Beethoven program with a perfunctory performance of the “Egmont” Overture, distorted by exceptionally raucous amplification. He closed it with a nice, graceful, tellingly-detailed performance of the Seventh Symphony, marred only by a frenzied finale.

Herbig chose, incidentally, to play the four movements without separating pauses. It was difficult to tell whether this indicated an interpretive view of the symphony as one long, continuing statement or if it was just a ploy to discourage inappropriate applause.

The soloist and central attraction was Alfred Brendel playing the “Emperor” Concerto. The Austrian pianist, ever intelligent and ever probing, made much of the introspective passages. Despite grotesque distortion (was it the sound system or the Steinway or both?), he sustained Mozartean lyricism wherever possible.

He introduced exquisite pianissimos, sometimes in unaccustomed places. He mustered lovely diminuendos, tripped with elan over the treacherous runs and scales.

But when Beethoven demanded heroism, Brendel encountered troubles. The bravura outbursts took a certain toll in accuracy. The rondo finale lumbered when it should have soared.

The audience, officially tabulated at 14,012, didn’t seem to mind at all.